The Frolic of the Beasts

The Frolic of the Beasts Reviewed by CHRIS CABRERA The Frolic of the Beasts, by Yukio Mishima, translated by Andrew Clare. Vintage International, 2018; Paperback, 166 pages; $15.00. This year, Japan has seen a resurgence of interest in one of its greatest modern authors, Yukio Mishima, in the wake of commemorating the 50th year since his passing by ritual suicide. The writer’s death was a theatrical event, staged after a failed coup at the Japan Self Defense Forces HQ where, clad in full military garb, Mishima addressed the crowd of bewildered onlookers below the balcony—military commanders and cadets, but also news crews eager for a scoop—as he demanded modern Japan return to sovereignty under the emperor in an effort to regain its former glory. The crowd, perplexed and disgusted, jeered at him, as Mishima expected. The author, who had finished the manuscript of his life work tetralogy, The Sea of Fertility that same morning—retreated from the balcony to enact his pact with death in an inner room. While the spectacle has been immortalized by the shocking images of this performance—still replayed and circulated to this day—it betrays an author whose life was much more complex than this event would suggest—not to mention, leaving behind a catalog of writing that stands out as some of the most brilliant works to come out of Japan—or even the world—in the 20th century. Magazines in 2020 have featured Mishima on the cover once again, introducing new readers to his library of work, and television stations have spliced together archival and rare footage of Mishima—the writer, the husband, soldier, playwright, and more—to present viewers with a montage of images of his life before his suicide shook the country and literary world 50 years ago in 1970. The television program concluded with an attempt to frame Mishima’s writings in the context of the global pandemic, although these tenuous connections are certainly up for debate. The same renewed public interest in Mishima is less widespread outside of Mishima’s home country of Japan—perhaps because of his controversial politics, many readers worldwide have tread with caution—but nevertheless, there has been an increase in English language translations leading up to this commemorative event. With so many novels—not to mention plays, critiques, short stories, and the like—the task of completing Mishima’s vast and varied catalog of material is daunting, but in recent years more and more talented translators have taken up the task of rounding out his remaining novels for publication, perhaps anticipating the recent sparks of interest in 2020. Stephen Dodd has translated Life for Sale (1968—translation, 2019) and the forthcoming Beautiful Star, and Mishima’s look into the life of a haughty young actor in cheap action movies—perhaps a reflection of his own time in the movie industry—in the novella Star (1960—translation, 2019) has also appeared in translation by Sam Bett. And a year before, in 2018, another novel by Mishima appeared in English for the first time: The Frolic of the Beasts (1961), published by Vintage International with 189 The Frolic of the Beasts a translation by Andrew Clare. Although it garnered high praise upon its publication in Japan, later on it was rarely mentioned, perhaps dwelling in the immense shadows cast by The Golden Pavilion that preceded it in 1955 and A Sailor Who Fell From Grace By The Sea in 1963. While it certainly does not dethrone these two centerpieces in Mishima’s body of work, The Frolic of the Beasts is a reminder of some of the writer’s strongest points: his keen attention to detail and vivid descriptions, his look into the increasingly complex inner workings of the mind and actions of youth, and his overall look at the masks which people hide behind and the complexities of society and the environment that serve as the backdrop. Frolic of the Beasts was a longtime personal project of translator Andrew Clare, who shelved the completed translation for decades until he considered having it formally published—a timely decision that coincides with the aforementioned resurgence of Mishima titles that have appeared in recent years. While the number of different projects by various translators is certainly welcome news, there is some concern if these disparate publications will come together to deliver a coherent, uniform, authorial voice. Many different translators have worked on Mishima’s novels and plays throughout the years –some have even worked with the author himself to have his literature presented in the best way possible to English audiences—leaving a great burden on many of these new projects to contribute to a legacy of skilled translations of Mishima’s prose—and of course, between each other. A translator must deal with their work as not a stand-alone piece, but in relation to the other well- established works in the author’s canon—certainly a concern for a literary figure as widely translated as Mishima, whose “voice” has already become distinct and recognizable in the English language. Andrew Clare’s translation will not disappoint avid readers of Mishima’s work, who will immediately recognize this as a “Mishima” novel, with Clare’s reworking of the original Japanese assuming an air very similar to one familiar to those who have read many of the author’s works in English. From the opening chapter, ripe with lavish descriptions of the most mundane or deplorable workings of a prison shower to the reoccurring ventures into each character’s psyche—there is no mistaking this as a novel by Mishima himself. Clare has navigated the complexities of Japanese to ensure that the Frolic of the Beasts keeps a natural flow that is largely uninterrupted by questionable word choice or mishaps of translation, a challenge for a translator retrieving a novel from almost 60 years ago that was written by Mishima with meticulous attention to detail. Of course, a fine-tuned translation is nothing if its source material is bland or uninteresting and this is certainly not the case for The Frolic of the Beasts. The story depicts a strange love triangle between Ippei, a successful businessman and literary figure, his cold but beautiful wife Yuko, and a student apprentice, Koji, who begins working for Ippei at his luxury shop in the middle of Tokyo. Koji encounters Ippei’s beautiful wife and immediately falls in love. His admiration for Yuko is perhaps fueled by his resentment for Ippei, who is openly in affairs with many other women. On the surface, Yuko is indifferent to her husband’s infidelity, but this only strengthens his desire to continue. Koji agrees that something needs to be done, staging a 190 Pacific Asia Inquiry, Volume 11, Number 1, Fall 2020 confrontation that catches Ippei in the act. Yet the two stop short of any real understanding, and Koji, realizing in an instant that the event is meaningless, takes matters into his own hands by striking Ippei in the face with a wrench he picked up by chance. The bulk of the novel takes place years after this crime, after Koji is released from prison. Yuko is now living in a scenic village in the mountains of rural Japan—the fictional town of Iro located in the Izu peninsula—tending to a horticulture business, managing the green houses with an assistant, the elder Teijiro, as she tends to her husband. Ippei survived the attack but incurred damage to his physical and mental state: he is paralyzed on one side, resulting in “indeterminable smile” and can barely speak. Yuko, however, agrees to house Koji upon his release from prison—the young boy has no places to return—no relatives or parents in the city. A strange dynamic develops between the three as their pasts fester like a wound, unhealing even as time passes. Koji is still in love with Yuko, she is indeed still in love with boy, too, but cannot forsake her ill husband. Koji’s brash act of violence that was enacted to set events in motion has only rearranged the complicated love triangle and brought things, once again, to a halt. In the end, Koji’s life in the village with the couple ends in the way it only can—in death, tragedy, and without much resolution, suggesting they were all doomed from the start. The events are arranged in the novel in a non-linear manner, causing enough confusion to justify a second reading. The novel opens with an episode of the three taking a photo together that comes before the tragic events at the end of the novel. Nonetheless, the narrator alludes to future tragedies that will shatter the smiles of the three reflected in this photograph. We are then directed to a hill with their graves. Although the three will be buried together, Ippei’s grave and Koji’s grave lie on opposite sides of Yuko’s—the only one which has yet to be filled. The opening chapters rely on repeated foreshadowing of Koji’s future crime, building suspense for a climactic incident that will tie the events together. Yet the suspense dissipates barely halfway into the novel, and things change gear to focus on the happenings of the three after the incident. It feels as if the novel could have benefitted from a rearranged timeline, with the opening feeling unbalanced and rushed to present the complicated back story only to approach a slower pace later. But conforming to a standard narrative structure is admittedly not typical of Mishima. Damian Flanagan points out in his review that the disturbed sense of linear time that runs through The Frolic of the Beasts is predicated on its heavily reliance on tropes from Noh theater.

Load more